“As everyone knows, the starters are all assigned a Spirit Sister at the beginning of the year.” I rolled my eyes at the rest of the cheerleaders grouped around Adriana, bouncing and clapping in excitement. “Our goal is to make their lives easier so they can focus on kicking ass every Saturday!”

A roar burst through the room.

“But a man’s got to have his fun too, right?” Adriana’s brows lifted in suggestion as the roar amped up.

“So tonight marks the beginning of a new Spirit Sister tradition.” Lifting the arm she’d hidden behind her back, she revealed a full bottle of top shelf vodka. Another explosion of cheering. Over a pretty girl holding a bottle of liquor.

It was oddly depressing.

“We don’t only do your laundry and make you brownies, we’ll get you drunk as a skunk!” Adriana waited for the crowd to quiet before continuing. I was already feeling sick to my stomach before her eyes landed on Jude. “Each Spirit Sister will serve a shot to her assigned player, starting with the quarterback first.”

Yep, that’s what I was waiting for. She was using the ruse of a game and the motivation of peer pressure to separate Jude from me. Holly’d been right with her manipulation meter readings on Adriana.

“That means you, Jude Ryder!” she shouted into the microphone, waving the bottle at him.

Jude groaned, peering over at me, but before he could say anything, a herd of his teammates moved up behind him and began shoving him towards the front of the room.

“Don’t worry, Jude’s date for the night, you’ll get him back,” Adriana said, staring right at me. I wanted to slap that smug smile off her face for referring to me as nothing more than “Jude’s date.” “That is, if he wants to come back after playing the game we’ve got planned for him.”

A couple of guys around me hung their heads back and made coyote calls. I was reminded, yet again, that men were evolved from apes.

Shoving Jude up next to Adriana, the herders stepped back into the crowd so everyone could see what was happening up in front. I didn’t like seeing Jude standing so close to Adriana, seeing how close in height they were. In her heels, only a couple inches separated them. They’d fit together perfectly. Why my mind went there, I don’t know, but the image of Jude bracing himself above Adriana while he kissed her, moving inside of her, made me clutch at my stomach.

“Here’s how this works,” Adriana said, looking over at Jude, who was rubbing the back of his neck, looking every shade of uncomfortable. “Shot glass,” she began, lifting a small glass. “Shot,” she continued, pouring the clear liquid to the brim. Then, handing the bottle off to one of her fellow cheerleaders, she raised his index finger to the crowd, who was looking around at each other like big deal.

Rolling down the top of her strapless dress, she tucked the shot glass between her huge tits. “Enjoy,” she instructed. “No hands allowed.”

Oh, hell no.

The guys had turned into rabid beasts, throwing their arms in the air and cheering.

Adriana took it in, managing a tiny curtsy without spilling a drop of liquid, right before her gaze shifted on me. “What are you waiting for, Jude?” she said, looking nowhere else but at me. “Drink up.”

“What the hell are you doing standing here, you stupid, stupid girl?” Holly hissed beside me, shoving me towards the front of the room. Reaching down my dress, she slapped the panties into my hand. “Go beat that bitch at her own game.”

It took one more solid shove from Holly, but then I went into action. Hurrying through the bodies chanting “Ry-der” and throwing fist pumps into the air, I balled the panties up into my hand, watching Jude, who was watching me. I had his attention, likely because he was worried about me getting eye molested by one of his teammates, but right now, I’d take his attention any way I could get it.

“Your shot’s getting warm,” Adriana said into the microphone, giving her bust a little shake. This time, a splash of liquid spilled out, running down her cle**age.

Shoving the last hulk of a man standing between me and Jude, I brushed past Jude, curling my pinky over his, waiting for his hand to open. As soon as it did, I slipped the lacy thong into his hands, arched a brow at him, and kept walking.

Walking away from Jude, standing there beside with Adriana, all but being peer pressured by his entire team to upend a shot of alcohol from Tits R Us, brought me near to hyperventilation. But I couldn’t turn back because what was I going to say? What was I going to do? I had to trust that Holly, in all her man-eater wisdom, knew what she was doing.

The crowd started thinning out by the time I made it to the hall, and there wasn’t a sign of anyone when I walked into the bathroom at the end of the hall. Closing the door behind me, I braced my hands over the sink and focused on breathing.

Before I’d completed one full breath, the door whispered open. Looking up in the mirror, my smile pulled so tight it almost hurt when I saw Jude’s face, wound into a hungry expression, staring back at me.

“I think you lost something,” he said in a low voice, lifting his hand where my underwear dangled from his finger.

My smile stretched farther. Now it was hurting. “Looks like the right person found them.”

Stepping inside, Jude shut the door behind him. The bathroom was small, and small was a generous term for it. For the two of us to fit in here, my butt was rammed into the sink counter and Jude’s back was pressed up against the shower wall.